Thursday, February 21, 2013

Chicas de Jehova

This was our first try at getting the kids to say 'Jehovah.' Diego is always quick to speak up and his response to 'Who is God?' was 'ME!!!!!'
So we tried again (and I meant 'cual' not 'que' for those who speak spanish =P)

They did do really well today. They watched the videos off the website and really understood that Jehovah feels sad when we don't listen and obey. They were thrilled so much by the airplane at the beginning of the movie that when we asked them later who lives in heaven they said 'Jehovah, angels, and airplanes.' The owner of daycare came in at one point and asked one of the children why the man in the picture was being eaten by a fish (Jonah) and one little boy answered 'because he didn't listen to Jehovah.' We talk about how we need to listen and obey at every single study. The owner also told us that earlier that day one child asked her 'When are the Chicas de Jehova coming?'

We had a crazy experience today. We were waiting in a plaza (same one where we got sprayed with shaving cream) for a service meeting to begin. We were with two brothers who were speaking in French about territories. An older Bolivian man approached us with a bunch of Bolivian bags that he was selling. This happens to us all the time because we are white. Usually it is another man who we have run into 4 times. The man showed us each and every bag he had (all identical) and we had to say 'No thank you' to each of them. Finally I showed him that I already had a bag like those and all I have in it is my Bible and Bible literature. I gave him a tract and told him it was all I had to offer him. It was the tract about suffering. He looked at the picture and was amazed by it. I started to tell him about the future that God promises and he interrupted me to ask me what the animal on the tract is. I have no clue how to say 'Moose' in Spanish so I told him it was a giant animal like a horse but from Canada. He accepted this as an answer and then decided to have a problem with the woman on the tract and wanted to know her story as well. I told him I don't know. He figured out that we were witnesses and asked us 'Are you sisters?' (Which we have learned just because a person calls you sisters doesn't mean you he is a witness) and we said yes. Then he shook my hand like crazy. Unappreciative of the attention I said 'Have you met Elise?' and directed his attention to her. He then told her 'You are so beautiful I am going to kiss you' and then his face just went colliding at hers. He kissed her cheek multiple times and it was wet and he was slowly moving closer to her mouth. She was able to turn her head enough that he failed. He then came after me and did the same. Then he decided to leave and we were there shocked. We asked the brothers next to us why they didnt save us. They were cracking up and said it looked like we had it all covered. A toothless, possibly homeless old man was eating our faces. Yes we had it under control.
(You thought we were ganna start a Bible study with him, huh? NOPE)

Kissable, no? hahahahahahha!!!

These are a couple of our brothers doing early morning witnessing and spending the whole time starting a study here because they're amazing.

These are some stairs we have to climb for service on Thursdays. It kills us (elevation... sure...)

In the Barrio America (part of our territory) there are always tons of pigs.

We also often have to scale muddy hillsides because it is a really poor area.

Elise mentioned letter writing in another post. They do it
differently here! No one really has mail boxes. The witnesses write
letters and slide them under the doors of not-at-homes (they don't keep
not at homes here). It is a really cute idea and we hope to try to find a
way to use this idea in the states. Here is our letter that we came up
with all on our own! We copied a lot from the Reasoning book and teach book... ok all of it is from the Reasoning Book and Teach Book

These last two pictures are food related (in the future we will do an actual post about Bolivian food). First is a picture of a bakery we found across town. I ate one of those cone thingies that was filled with dulce de leche and whipped cream, it made my day. The second is a picture that only people who aren't squeamish should look at (JOHN HARRIS DON'T LOOK!!!!). It is a picture of just one stand at the Mercado where they sell meat (we've been lost here before and it is terrifying). There are dozens of these all in a row- no refrigeration, plenty of flies and dogs around, and the smell is sooooooo bad. We aren't buying this meat- I promise. We would die. While we were taking this picture a man walked by with a skinned pig carcass on his back. They'd already cleaned some of the inside. Elise about passed out.

Can you see the front part of a cow's face on the left and many tails on the right?

I think literally everything else is in between.

We leave for the zone visit in the morning so I thought I'd get all our random information shared before we have stuff to relate that is actually interesting and has a theme.

I seriously thought you were going to start a study with him. Pretty much confirms to me that globally, toothless old men are perverts period. Uggghh...anyhoo, you guys are making sweet progress with the babies. That is fun to see and hear. You all planted a lot of seeds in those little hearts. And we've been learning from the yearbooks that little ones show much force when it comes to love for Jehovah. It will be amazing to see how they grow. :D